Traditionally, retailers may allow users to access sensitive hosted content upon receiving the appropriate authenticating information, such as credit card numbers, purchase history, etc. However, this sensitive information may only be accessed when a user is signed-in and, requiring a signed-off user to re-enter the authenticating information to access the sensitive information. Thus, retailers have designed their websites with the ability to recognize users after being logged off by placing an encrypted cookie on the user's computing device via a web browser. This cookie may be then used to later identify the user from the same computing device to provide access to certain types of insensitive information (e.g., items previously stored in the user's virtual shopping cart), without requiring the user to re-enter his authenticating information. A user would still need to enter his authentication information, however, to complete a transaction or to otherwise access information that is deemed sensitive in nature.
Although the use of encrypted cookies allows websites to recognize users after being logged out of a particular session, conventional systems are limited to recognizing the cookie stored locally on the computing device, and only if the user has set his browser security settings to allow this activity. Conventional systems have no way of recognizing that same user when browsing the website from another computing device, and thus require users to re-enter authenticating information from each new, unrecognized computing device. Because various retailer website functionalities rely on adequately identifying each user, conventional systems have several drawbacks by failing to do so.